Growing
up on the tough streets of Chicago, Tom Scanlon was a scrappy Irish youth,
just out of his teens when the Army seemed a good alternative to his oil
company job. On April 14, 1941 at age 22 he enlisted. Three years and
52 days later he was looking at the inside of the ramp of a Higgins landing
boat along with other members of the U.S. 12th Infantry as they approached
the coast of Normandy, France. It was June 6, 1944, and Tech 5th Grade
Combat Medic Scanlon was about to step out into history.

Fifty-six
years later, I am standing with Scanlon on that beach, on that same spot
where he landed. "It's a lot different today than when I was
coming in on one of them Higgins boats," he says. "Now that
guy was a hero. Weren't for him, you and me most likely be speaking
German," he adds wryly.

Andrew
Jackson Higgins, the rough and tumble Irishman who Eisenhower said "won
the war for us," founded Higgins Industries in New Orleans in 1930
as a lumber importer and exporter. By 1939 and into 1940, he had begun
experimenting with a prototype for a workboat/landing craft in back of
his facility on St. Charles Avenue. With a tough, street-wise attitude
often fueled by his taste for good bourbon, Higgins bulled his way into
the market by introducing the Eureka. This shallow-draft 36-footer could
operate in 18 inches of water and, thanks to its solid-pine bow, run through
almost any obstacle. To prove that it could, Higgins often ran one up
onto the sea wall at Lake Ponchartrain.

But
what made the Eureka special was her hull design. In his book Andrew Jackson
Higgins and the Boats That Won World War II, Jerry Straham offers the
following description: "A deep vee forward led to a reverse-curve
section amidships and two flat planing sections aft, flanking a semi-tunnel
that protected the propeller and shaft. Aerated water flowing under the
forefoot created less friction when the boat was moving and allowed for
more speed and maneuverability. Because of the reverse curve, objects
in the water could be pushed away at a point between the bow and amidships.
This allowed continuous high-speed running and cut down on damage to the
propeller, as floating objects seldom came near it. The flat sections
aft...actually had a catamaran/planing effect, which added to the
hull speed."

By 1941
Higgins Industries was swept up in the vortex of the wartime economy.
The government began ordering the Eureka modified for military purposes,
specifically for landing men and equipment on beaches. Ironically, the
bow-ramp design came from a boat used in 1937 by Japan during its war
with China. That design would be brutally tested on the Japanese during
the battles for Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and other islands
whose beaches would be stormed using the Higgins LCVP (landing craft vehicle,
personnel).

The Higgins LCVP was made of oak, pine, and mahogany and displaced
15,000 pounds. Its beam measured 10'10" and it drew 3'0" aft
and 2'2" forward. Powered by a single 225-hp Graymarine diesel, an
LCVP had a top speed of 12 knots. Two .30 caliber machine guns were mounted
aft. The crew of three included a coxswain, engineer, and deck hand. An
LCVP could carry 36 armed soldiers, a 6,000-pound vehicle, or 8,100 pounds
of cargo.